Thursday, March 20, 2014

I had the pleasure of teaching my Portrait Quilts 101 using my Angelina Pattern at the Fox Valley Tech. College's Sewing and Quilting Expo in Oshkosh WI last Friday March 14, 2014. I had 7 ladies in my class and 6 hours to teach them my techniques. The first photo is at the end of the day where they posed with their projects. All but one got to the quilting stage of the process. This was a fun group of women-they knew basic quilting information and could concentrate on the artistic process. As you can see the quilts all turned out a bit different!! They told me they are thrilled to see results and go home with a project nearly finished.

I am choosing to not add names to the descriptions so I will refer to each artist as "this woman." This woman stepped outside of my pattern pieces and added a fabric necklace and decorative clothing. She also enlarged the eyes and mouth. Very striking!!

This woman early in the class asked me if I had a pattern for eye glasses. I looked around the room and 6 out of 7 of the students and myself wear glasses. I said no I didn't but I would draw up an applique pattern. Then another woman, who was wearing awesome cat eyewear frames, asked me to draw her glasses also. So through the requests of students I have added glasses to my little portraits!!

This woman chose to do her project as a self portrait and added an asymmetrical blouse in which she will add a decorative button once the quilt is finished. Creativity!!

This woman followed my suggestion to use non-human skin tones and selected two awesome teal/green colors. Also blue hair and purple glasses. Very fun and the woman in the portrait looked like a beautiful reptile!!

This woman used one of my "bonus" hairstyles which I give to only people who take my class. She chose to NOT fuse the end of the ponytail and said she will create a 3D pony when it is finished!

This woman started a bit unsure of her color scheme but when she pulled this great blue border fabric it all came together. I am so jealous of this fabric of figures of woman-no name on the selvage end to track it. It is subtle but works so well. A great use of primary colors and a triad color scheme!

This woman selected fabrics that where more subdued and earthy. She felt her skin tone choices where a little too similar. Maybe but it's still lovely and she can quilt it in a darker thread and add "blush" to the cheek to add more color!

This woman also selected earthy colors. She went with a teal batik for the shoulder straps which seemed odd to me at first but the outer border pulled in the teal and it was very lovely and soothing to the eye!!

That's my Show and Tell!! This was such a rewarding time with a group of ladies that were an A+ in my opinion!! I hope they finish their quilts and, if so, I will post them on my blog!

Friday, March 7, 2014

I have a website www.laurieceesay.com and I have had Ann Bridges from Appleton WI (my hometown) re-do my website last year. Ann is a former hair customer, neighbor and we found each other a while back on Facebook. Ann has a web design business called AMB Web Solutions and she helped me out when my original web designer retired.

Ann is very generous with adding pages/widgets to my website. I just added a page with my teaching schedule and another page with my patterns for sale.

So I wanted to pay her back by making a portrait quilt of her. I used her Facebook photos as references since I haven't actually seen Ann in several years. I was wondering what her favorite color was so I could use that as the color scheme of the quilt so I was sneaky and told her I was doing a survey on "what is your favorite color?" for my color classes. I did ask on Facebook and to the people I worked with etc. in a 24 hour period and the results were interesting.

Pink was her favorite color (mine too!) and I loosely use a pattern where I did myself in a whimsical portrait and Ann's glasses were the same shape as mine. I changed the face shape, smile and nose. She has fun hair too!! As I was creating this quilt Ann posted on Facebook while watching American Idol that Keith Urban and her had the same haircut!! I had to agree!

I embellished with nail polish on the lips, pink rhinestones in the background and some bronze fabric paint in the hair. No jewelry.

I mailed it to Ann this week and she received it yesterday and loved it!

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Wayne Art Center is in Wayne PA-I have never been there. I received an email from them about fabric postcards donations for their art center. They have an art exhibit (which I had no idea about) every year and they have another exhibit of fabric postcards at the same time as the main exhibit. The postcard exhibit is called "Hanging with AQE." I donated this postcard in the second photo. Apparently they raise money by selling these cards to help the art center.

I had this card hanging out in my studio so I mailed it off for the cause and exposure! Not too much commitment on my part except some paperwork and a trip to the Post Office! I hope someone likes enough to bid on it and it can have a happy new home!!

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About Me

I am a contemporary quilter who specializes in portrait quilts. I am a hairdresser and am fascinated with hairstyles, make up, replicating the human form in fiber, retro fashion/prints, flowers and fairies. I usually work with bright colors, batiks and large scale prints. I love to embellish my quilts with rhinestones, beads, baubles, yarn, paint and crayons.